


Illuminado

by misura



Category: The Golden Key - Kate Elliottt & Melanie Rawn & Jennifer Roberseon
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 22:13:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2085105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"I did not paint a door," she says.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Illuminado

It is impossible to tell time in this half-dark place - outside, days may have passed, or mere hours.

The candles yet burn; he can see his reflection, the face that once was his. _The face of the man she loves._ After everything that has happened between them, he knows it to be true, still.

After all, is what she has done to him not the exact same thing he has done to her? Why, then, should her action have been motivated by any other emotion than that which drove his?

_Love._

He draws some small comfort from this, yet he cannot but worry. She is as knowledgeable as he is, by now, on all things magic. She has read the _Folio_ , the _Kita'ab_.

She is weaker, though, softer of heart. She cannot do what he has done, cannot live another's life as if it were her own, no matter that it is the right thing. Which means that, eventually, she will die.

 _I did not save you for this, 'Vedra._ Things are not yet right for her now; what added value to her life to live it now, with ordinary people seizing power never meant to be theirs? With him not there, to guide and instruct her? To love her?

"Sario."

Her voice has changed - it must have been some time, then. Years, perhaps, even. No matter; she has come back to him, as he has always known she would.

 _'Vedra._ He cannot yet turn, but he has found that, with effort, he may manipulate the mirror to permit him a glimpse of outside. _You came for me._

"En verro." She sounds sad, regretful.

 _I'm not angry with you. I could never be angry with you._ He is angry _for_ her, though; for all the time that has been wasted already, time she might have spent with him.

Who but him can properly appreciate her gift, her luzzo, and nurture it to fullness?

"You have learned nothing at all, have you? You don't regret anything you have done."

 _How could I?_ There have been some mistakes, perhaps. Some lives that might have been spent so much more useful, if only events had unfolded as he had envisioned them, as he had planned them.

"Zhi. How could you?"

 _Have you come to free me?_ He tries not to sound impatient. He knows she is here to free him; why else would she have come?

"I considered it," she says. "Do you remember Tomaz?"

 _Of course._ The lie comes easily; she cannot know how difficult it becomes, to remember the names of people long dead, and keep them separate from those of the living.

"Is that what you want?" she asks, and he feels the memory return to him.

For one moment, he cannot believe it. That she could ever think he would wish for her to -

 _'Vedra! No!_ She cannot possibly be serious. _You must not! The painting - it would burn you as surely as it would me. It might even kill you._

"Eiha." She moves sideways just so, and he can finally see her face in the mirror, and realizes it has not been days or even years since she has trapped him here.

It has been decades. She is old, now, and frail. Even if she freed him now, she would never be his estuda, never paint as he has always intended for her to paint.

 _'Vedra._ She will have painted, regardless. Her luzzo would not permit anything less.

"I did not paint a door," she says. "You will never escape from where you are, Sario, unless it is by this."

Already, the candles have grown shorter; soon, he will be surrounded by nothing but darkness. Soon, she will be dead, and what light can there remain in the world then?

Given enough time, he thinks he might have convinced her to do as he has done, to live lives that would have gone wasted otherwise. Not now, though. It is too late.

_I will not be what kills you. After, grazzo. Let it be after._

" 'cordo. Eleyna has painted a copy, many years ago. It is very good. Nobody will see it is not the original."

Eleyna must be old as well, now. His last estuda, wasting her gift on Qal Venommo. Such waste, these two lives, these two women, whose luzzo might have shone so much brighter had they been born male, or in a time when gender was less relevant than talent.

So much work left yet undone.

"Saludos, Sario. I will not come again."

_Saludos, 'Vedra._

(That night, when one of the candles dies, he knows that she will, en verro, not come again.)


End file.
